On the Atomic Bombings

Today is the 68th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. I guess this is the time to address something that I’ve been considering for a while; it’s a point where I disagree with many other Catholics and even the general opinion of the Church itself.

I support the atomic bombings of Japan at the end of WWII.

My main reason for doing so, and the reason I find arguments that this is ‘utilitarianism’ or such like unconvincing is that I have never once heard anyone present a viable alternative that wouldn’t have clearly resulted in many more deaths and much greater suffering. Yes, atomic bombs are horrible things, but I wonder if we’re so awed by their terrible power that we forget that there are many things that are, in their way, worse.

From what I understand, there were four options available to the US at the end of WWII to deal with Japan:

1.     Drop the Atomic Bombs to try to force a surrender

2.     Increase conventional bombing to try to force a surrender

3.     Blockade the islands until the Japanese had to surrender

4.     A full-scale invasion of mainland Japan using conventional forces.

Let’s set the first one aside for the moment and consider the second. Something we forget is that many, many more Japanese civilians died in conventional bombing raids than in the atomic bombs. I won’t comment on the morality of this, but the fact is that, when the Americans firebombed Tokyo in Operation Meetinghouse, months before Hiroshima, more people died than in either atomic bombing. And Tokyo, together with other Japanese cities, had been enduring this sort of thing for years (estimates of the death toll from air raids over Japan range as high as 900,000). Now, since Japan had weathered that firestorm, was there any reason to believe that continuous bombings would be any more successful? And even if they were, this would have to mean increasing the scale of the bombings, meaning more nights like Operation Meetinghouse, and one after another after another. However justified or unjustified killing 250,000 people with two bombs may have been, I don’t think killing twice that number with a million bombs would be any better.

Now regarding the third option. I think that sounds, to our ears, like the most humane; just blockade the islands and starve them out.

Starve. Them. Out.

Think of what that means. The Islands of Japan all starving. And while you consider that, remember that Japan – especially Imperial Japan – was a very militaristic culture, where suicide had long been regarded as an honorable thing (even today, Japan is the suicide capital of the world). And you know what a common method of suicide was? Self starvation. Faced with the choice between surrender and national suicide by starvation, I honestly think that, at best, it would have taken the Japanese a long time to decide on the former. In meantime, millions of people all around the island starve to death. Again, I don’t see how that would be any morally superior to the atomic bombings.

Oh, and let’s not forget that, while both these options were going on, Japanese forces are still fighting in Manchuria, and thousands of people – soldiers and civilians – are dying every day. China, remember, had the worst civilian casualties of the whole war, and that was due almost entirely to the Japanese. So not only are the Japanese dying by the thousand while we bomb them or starve them out (or, more likely, both), but so are the Chinese.

Both these options would have dragged on the war and cost far more lives than the atomic bombings. And, we must remember, there’s really no guarantee that either would have worked. It isn’t at all outside the range of possibilities that that Japanese, even with their cities burning and their people starving to death, would have sat down and let themselves be slaughtered piecemeal rather than surrender. Even after the atomic bombings the military commanders still wanted to fight on, and even attempted to kidnap the Emperor on the way to his announcement of Japan’s surrender. I don’t think either firebombs (which they had endured for years already) nor starvation (which they would have viewed as honorable) would have been any more convincing.

That leaves two options: the atomic bombs and the invasion.

The invasion option, I trust, doesn’t need much explanation to see why it was undesirable. Casualty estimates famously ranged into the millions for the Allies, and God alone knows how many Japanese would have been killed. Moreover, we’re talking about a nation that was arming civilians with broomsticks and training children to pack on explosives and dive under tanks. Would there have been a Japan at all after such an invasion? I doubt it. Even if there were, let’s not forget that hundreds of thousands of our grandfathers would have gone down on Japanese soil rather than coming home after their long years at war. I remember someone, I can’t remember who, imagining President Truman telling hundreds of thousands of grieving mothers and widows that the war could have been ended a year earlier without invading Japan, but they decided it wouldn’t be morally right to do so.

That thought puts things a little into perspective, doesn’t it? As horrible as the bombings were, is it at all likely that an invasion, or a blockade, or what have you would have been any less horrible? Isn’t it more likely that, dragged on for months or even years, they would have been far, far worse?

Essentially, the issue was this; America was at war with Japan and had been for nearly four years. America had a very powerful new weapon, one so powerful that it thought might end the war immediately and with less loss of life on either side than could be reasonably expected from any other method. America used that weapon against two military targets (and yes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets; they had barracks, steel-mills, and so on used to fuel the Japanese war machine). In the process, many thousands of civilians were killed along with the military personnel. Tragic? Yes. Horrific? Yes. Unjustified and evil? I have to say no. Dropping the atomic bomb was simply the best option available, both tactically and morally speaking. That certainly doesn’t make it a “good thing” in and of itself, but it does, I think, justify it.

In any case, let’s take a moment today to pray for the souls of both the victims of the bombings and those who committed it. They are both in God’s hands now, and He knows best. 

Vive Christus Rex! 

An Appreciation for the Jews

Let’s face it: the Jews are awesome.

They’ve been around for roughly four-thousand years, during which time they’ve been almost constantly conquered, enslaved, deported, persecuted, attacked, denied rights, and suffered attempted genocide. Yet, they’re still here. Not only are they still here, but they consistently dominate in high-caliber fields like banking, medicine, and law. The crime rate among Jews is minimal. The Israeli Military is the second best in the world and consistently beats the ever-loving crap out of countries ten-times their size. They’re like human honey badgers: they look so small and insignificant, but if you try to get in their way they rip off your face and re-purpose it as a yarmulke.

Shema Ysrael

And they do all this while resisting the siren-like allure of bacon. That takes serious will-power. 

Oh, and if you’re still not convinced, get a load of this guy!

 

That’s pure manliness right there. The Jews rock.

In all seriousness, I have boundless admiration and respect for the Jewish people. To me their continued existence and continued faith, despite everything, is one of the clearest proofs of God’s existence. Some 4000 years ago, God promised a nomad named Abram that his descendents would be God’s chosen people. Today you can find still find them in almost every major city in the western world, while the Assyrians, Hittites, Babylonians, Egyptians, and whatever other civilizations that flourished around them have gone down to the dust. And the Hittites, Babylonians, etc. all had stronger civilizations and never faced the kind of persecution that the Jews have, but they’re gone and the Jews remain. Not only are the Jews still here, but they’re still practicing essentially the same faith that Moses presented from Mt. Sinai. You might find an Egyptian descendent today, but you won’t find a real, old-fashioned, Nile-worshiping Egyptian. A modern Egyptian and an ancient Egyptian would have nothing to say to one another. A modern rabbi and an ancient rabbi could probably have an excellent conversation.

It makes me sad that the relationship between Jews and Christians has so often been very contentious (regarding what I said about constant persecutions, a lot of that was at our hands). Judaism, it seems to me, ought to be looked upon as something like the elder, unwed sister of the Christianity. She never married or had children, while Christianity wedded her bridegroom and became fertile, but for that very reason Judaism commands her younger sister’s respect and friendship.

Lewis once commented that we are still the “early Christians,” and that hopefully the division of the Church is only a growing pain, so to speak. If he’s right, then I hope that the old meanness and cruelty towards our elder sister was nothing but the petulance and unreasoning vanity of a young bride, and that we are now growing out of that stage and coming to reconcile with our wronged sister. For my part, I would hope that in the future it’s considered normal for Christians and Jews to mingle among one another in mutual respect and love. 

Vive Christus Rex!

Why I Plan to Homeschool

  I attended public school until high school, when I went to a Catholic School. I’m not married, but I’m already determined that when/if I have kids of my own, they’re going to be homeschooled all the way. That’s a non-negotiable for me (as in, any interfering government official who wants to question my right to do so can ‘negotiate’ with my lawyer, Ms. Mossberg).

                Whenever someone criticizes homeschooling, they always say something like “but the kids won’t be socialized.”

                First of all, that’s stupid. I’ve known a number of home schooled people and they’re perfectly well ‘socialized,’ thank you very much. Most are more out-going than I am, with my twelve-plus years of schooling that apparently has no point other than to make sure kids are socialized properly. It’s not as if homeschooled kids are locked up in sealed chamber and never see another human being, like in Dr. Marvin Monroe’s long-term isolation experiment (“I predict that the subject will have no social skills and harbor a deep resentment towards me!”). At an absolute bare minimum they have their parents. Now, pop quiz; do you think kids are better prepared to interact with the real world by imitating adults or their fellow children?

                Yeah.

                Also, I don’t know about you, but when I was in school I loathed attempts to ‘socialize’ us. For one thing, based on my experience, that generally translates to “letting kids know that if they’re quiet and thoughtful and don’t enjoy hanging out with a bunch of other kids they find generally obnoxious, that must mean there’s something wrong with them and they need to work hard to change that and be more like the aforementioned obnoxious kids. If you’re an introvert, that means you need to be ‘fixed’ and turned into an extrovert, since extroverts are the only kinds of people worth knowing or being.”

                Here’s what a typical exercise in socializing looks like (or, at least, would have looked like if I weren’t constantly crushed by being told that there must be something wrong with me for not wanting to spend time with the kids who periodically shouted random noises well into high school):

Well-Meaning teacher: “You have to work in teams for this project.”

Me: “But I don’t like working in teams. Teamwork is tedious and irritating, and I could do just as good or better work on my own. Putting me together with three other random kids and telling us to produce a report only makes it that much harder to accomplish anything.”

                WMT: “But you need to be more sociable.”

                Me: “I don’t want to be sociable with these people; I don’t like them!”

                WMT: “That’s why you need to socialize!”

                Me: “What? Look, I thought the point of this place was for me to learn things! I’d learn more if you just let me do my own work!”

                WMT: “You’re learning teamwork. When you grow up and get a job, you’ll need to use teamwork.”

                Me: “But presumably when I get a job I won’t be the only literate person on the team.”

                In short, the main social skill I learned from school was to assume “most people are ignorant pricks who aren’t worth knowing.” If that’s what you mean by ‘socializing,’ then good job, American school system! Now it’s only going to take four years of college, however many years in the working world, expensive therapy, and a lot of personal effort to unlearn it!

                That’s the main reason I intend to home school; to avoid school ‘socializing,’ because I am determined that no child of mine is going to go through that particular Hell. The fact that the Public Schools apparently exist to turn children into little Liberals obsessed with White Guilt and other nonsense is another reason. I had to learn the Presidents, the Declaration of Independence, the principles of reason, and most of the history I know either in college or on my own, but at least I learned that there was such a thing as racism! My education extended that far!

                Don’t you see why some people might take issue with submitting our children to the tender mercies of the State for six hours a day, five-days a week, for twelve-plus years?      

                “But you’ll just indoctrinate them and they won’t learn how to think!”

                Exactly! Oh, wait; you’re talking to me and not the government. First of all, yes, I would try to pass on my worldview to my children. That’s because I think it’s true and I want them to learn the truth. That’s the same reason the schools you love so much teach whatever they teach; because they think it’s true (or at least, that it’s true that it’s useful to someone). I’m not ‘indoctrinating’ any more than the schools are (a lot less, as a matter of fact); I’m just teaching something the schools disagree with. That would be another reason why I don’t want them teaching my children; what kind of parent wants his children to learn something he believes to be false?

                Second, the idea that kids learn how to think in public schools is quaint and rather sad. No, they get taught to swallow a lot of Leftist nonsense whole. Oh, and frankly; they’re kids. How much independent thought do you expect a flipping seven year old to have? Enough to critically examine the videos on Global Warming they’re watching in science class? Enough to say ‘wait a second; this book is a poorly written piece of racist propaganda designed to make me feel guilty about something some people who may have superficially looked like me did a hundred years ago!’? Enough to challenge their flipping teacher when they hear something that doesn’t seem to fit? No? Then don’t talk nonsense about their ‘thinking for themselves.’ Kids have to take their ideas from somewhere; you’re not going to raise a six-year-old Socrates who questions and examine everything he hears until he uncovers the truth through his own brilliant efforts. If parents don’t pass on their views, the kids will take their views from their peers, their teachers, or just society in general. Is that really what you want? Either you ‘indoctrinate’ them or someone else will, but there’s no question of ten year olds forming their own unique and worthwhile conclusions about the world through disinterested reflection and study, especially not when locked in room with a strange adult and twenty other kids being ordered to simply swallow whatever they’re told.

                I didn’t seriously learn to think until I went to college. For those who aren’t familiar with it, Franciscan University is one of the few genuinely Catholic colleges left in the country: it wears its faith boldly on its sleeve and the students are almost all obsessive Catholics (seriously; it was a little surreal at first, because while I was a practicing Catholic, I wasn’t used to everyone else being one). I had more serious, thoughtful, challenging discussions and encountered more honest-to-goodness ideas and learned to examine and critique them better in the four years I spent there than in the twelve I spent in public and private schools. So don’t you go saying that because my kids aren’t going to know how to think just because they won’t be getting Leftist/Materialist propaganda shoved down their throats from the age of five!

                In summary, the Public School systems’ view seems to be “well, he won’t learn much, but at least he’ll know that it’s okay to be different (in approved ways), and we’ll socialize him real good (meaning that he’ll have a venereal disease by the time he’s 16)!” And the private schools generally seem to take after the Public Schools, only with better funding and sometimes at least a veneer of religion thrown on the top. Add in that homeschoolers tend to mop the floor with public schoolers, academically speaking. So, no; I am quite determined that none of my children will ever set foot in one of those soul-crushing, brainwashing deathtraps commonly called “public schools.”

Vive Christus Rex!

Funny Pics

So, I stumbled across this site today and just had to caption some of these. Enjoy! (Note: all photos belong to their respective owners; citations are at the linked page).

Flying through that nuclear test had some unexpected benefits.

"To infinity and beyond!"

In-Laws...

"I gotta be me! Oh, I just gotta be me!"

"Time warp initiated..."

"Left my motor running / head out on the highway..."

"Okay, take it away!"

"Gotcha!"

"Eiffel Tower guys think they're so great? Let's see them top this..."

"Come on, if Buddha can catch one, I should be able to..."

"Oh, come on! You did that on purpose!"

Lots more at the link; go check 'em out!

Vive Christus Rex!

If You Didn't See This Coming, You've Officially Not Been Paying Attention

            Well, that was quick.

            Only a little while after England officially legalized Same-Sex Marriage (we still love you, your Majesty!), one particular fellow wants some more: he’s suing to have his ‘wedding’ in a church.

            His reasoning? “I want…a big, lavish ceremony, the whole works.” And “I’m still not getting what I want.”

            Yes, because it’s all about what you want, isn’t it? Who cares about pesky things like ‘rights’ or ‘religious beliefs:’ the important thing is that you should be able to have anything at all that you want, and if some people have to lose a basic human right to religious freedom in the process, well, who cares? So long as you have your big, lavish ceremony, just like you always wanted, that’s all that matters. 

            Oh, by the way, would it really be that difficult to find a church of some stripe that would host his little party? Opposition to SSM isn’t exactly widespread in the land of hope and glory, and from what I understand there are numerous churches which have taken it upon themselves to put being diverse and tolerant ahead of their faith. Why not go to one of them? I suspect it would take about a minute’s search on Google to find a church that’s willing to host a same-sex ‘wedding.’ It’d be a lot cheaper than suing a major institution…oh, no? You really just want to shove your beliefs down someone else’s throat via the courts? Oh, very well then: carry on.

            By the way, at what point do we get to stop calling you a member of an oppressed minority?

            So, in summary, this guy wants to force churches to violate their own religious teachings just so that he can get “what he wants.”

            Ooooooookkkkkkaaaaaaaay.

             “I’m still not getting what I want” could easily be the motto of the whole Gay Rights Movement: “It’s all about us! All about our being allowed to do whatever we want without your telling us that you think it’s wrong or disgusting or pointing out that’s it’s unhealthy or contrary to your religious beliefs. Our being confirmed and unchallenged, even celebrated, in our perversity is much more important than your silly rights to ‘religion’ or ‘free speech’ or ‘freedom of association.’ So either get behind us our we’ll do everything we can to destroy you!”

            Remind me who the unreasoning bigots are again?  

            Say, Korra! What do you think of suing churches to force them to recognize same-sex ‘marriage’?

Fair ‘nough. 

Vive Christus Rex!

Introducing Catholic Korra

Note: This makes much more sense if you're familiar with The Legend of Korra, the sequel series to Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Vive Christus Rex!

Gomer Pyle and Goodness

                Last night, while procrastinating when I should have been writing, I stumbled across the following clip.

                I don’t know about you, but I found that profoundly moving and inspiring in a way that is very rare today. I can’t really describe it any other way but goodness; the sheer, uncomplicated goodness of the clip simply radiates from it nearly every second. The simple plight of being too nervous to perform, the kind, unaffected advice offered by the guard, the beauty of the image of a Marine standing in reverence before one of the giants of his nation, reading and taking inspiration from the immortal words of Lincoln, and finally the raw power of the song itself, performed with every ounce of Jim Nabors’ considerable talent.

                This is goodness, the raw, naked kind that fills you, warms you, and lifts your heart. It shows not only great talent, but also great good-will, a fondness for its audience that wants to leave the viewer happy, feeling saturated by the sheer good being expressed. This is the True America compressed into a few short moments of film.

                I don’t know about you, but I would rather have that eight-minute clip than the entire run of The Sopranos or Family Guy or any other recent television show. Because, while the writers of these shows may be very talented indeed (I haven’t seen more than a few clips of them, which are all I want to see), they’re not using their talents to produce anything worth watching. Ambiguity, crassness, debauchery, evil, cruelty; that’s what you’re directing your skills to showing? Well, the writers of Gomer Pyle might not have had your talents, but they sure used such talents they had a hell of a lot better! It’s like the difference between Picasso, who used his great talent to cynically cater to the whims of the elite and make a fortune, but who confessed that he didn’t consider himself a real artist, and Bougereau, who simply sought to find and express beauty without caring whether it was ‘in fashion.’

                Most people prefer The Sopranos to Gomer Pyle, just like most people prefer Picasso to Bougereau. That’s their choice, but I think they’re wrong to do so. I think we are all too often dazzled by displays of talent into forgetting to ask “wait, what are they actually saying?” Sophistry, the use of cleverness and subtlety to obscure the truth, isn’t confined to oratory. In any art there are two facets: goodness and beauty. A good work that isn’t beautiful is simply a bad piece of art. A beautiful work that isn’t good is something detestable and dangerous. Great art is both. Simple trash, like you find in the average modern art gallery, is neither. Many things today are either good (expressing truth or virtue) without being beautiful (being unskilled and boring), or beautiful (being done with talent and inspiration) without being good (expressing evil ideas). The clip from Gomer Pyle is, in its modest way, both. That sets it head and shoulders above most of the stuff we see today.

                I didn’t mean to turn this into another piece complaining about the state of the modern world. It just goes to show how desperate I (and, I think most people) are for some simple goodness. We’re so glib, so cynical, so soft and jellified that we hardly know what to do when we run up against something solid and real and excellent. For me, I find it to be like a cold draft of water in a desert; it’s wonderful, but it also reminds me of the fact that I’m in a desert, and that even modern shows that I like usually don’t have this kind of raw goodness to them (about the only exception I can think of offhand are some parts of Avatar: The Last Airbender).

                I hate it. I hate the fact that this sort of thing has become so rare. I hate the fact that so many children are growing up without ever encountering it. I hate the cynical, sophistic mindset that says what we have now is an improvement because it’s ‘better written’ or ‘more true to life.’ It’s like the critic who claimed that an obscene, pedophilic photograph counted as ‘art’ because of its ‘lighting and composition’ (and no, I did not make that example up). In both cases it may even be true, but so what? It doesn’t change the fact that its ugly, crass, and devoid of virtue.

                I’m frankly sick of giving nasty bits of dreariness a pass because they’re well-made or clever. Give me something good, for pity’s sake, if you even know how!

Vive Christus Rex!